ES 11 Modern Europe: Terror and Redemption

This course serves as an introduction to central aspects of European culture and politics from the Enlightenment to today. Since the French Revolution, politics of terror and predictions of doom have accompanied promises of social, economic, national, and cultural redemption. Revolutionaries carried out acts of terror in the name of bourgeois democracy, anarchism, fascism, and communism. This course provides a wide-ranging introduction to competing theories and approaches in the humanities and social sciences that seek to understand the political and cultural context of several such decisive moments and revolutionary movements in European history and society. Next to exploring aspects of the French Reign of Terror, the Russian Revolution, Nazi Germany, and the eastern European Revolutions that brought an end to the Soviet Empire, this course focuses on radical movements in European art, literature and film. During the last weeks of the quarter, the course explores contemporary European issues: the founding and expansion of the European Union (a redemptive culmination of European history?) and the Brexit, the rise of European populist movements and their impact on the migrations crisis as well as European debates on global warming. (GE III or IV; VIII. Lectures in English)
Days: MWF  02:00-03:50 PM

Made in Germany, Made in China
Euro Studies 100B; EAS 110; HIST 114 · Winter 2027 · Instructor: Prof. Broadbent

How have Germans understood China, and what have their accounts revealed about Germany itself? This course examines German Chinese encounters from the nineteenth century to the present. We consider attempts to change China alongside efforts to learn from it, asking what particular people and institutions sought from the relationship.

Through accounts of colonial Qingdao, translations of Chinese classics to films, political documents, and debates about trade, we examine how descriptions of China supported claims about progress, authority, and Germany’s international position. The course’s recurring question is Wer wandelt wen? —who changes whom? We ask what Germans and Chinese sought from one another, and how far these encounters met their expectations. Through this relationship, we also examine Germany’s understanding of its place in Europe: when did German actors claim to speak for Europe, and when did their interests differ from those of other European states?
Days: MO WE  02:00-03:20 PM

Enlightenment in Europe and America
Instructor: David Pan (dtpan@uci.edu)

According to Immanuel Kant, “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his own self-incurred immaturity.” The uniform development of humanity implied in this dictum is based on the idea that reason can provide a secure basis for judgments that can replace the pronouncements of traditional authorities. While Enlightenment thinkers believed that they had found a rational basis for culture that could be used against the tyranny of authority and cultural prejudices, their anti-Enlightenment detractors suspected that the idea of a progress of humanity would not only threaten the spiritual foundations of culture but would also create its own tyranny by implying a hierarchy of cultures. The debate between these two camps continues to drive today’s discussions about whether one views humanity as collaborating on a single project or as a diversity of potentially clashing cultural forms and trajectories. This course will consider texts by both Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment writers in the 18th century in Europe and America in order to map out the terms and the stakes in the debate concerning reason vs. tradition as alternative bases for the organization of human society. Key themes in the course will include the possibilities and limits of human reason, the question of cultural diversity, and the relationship between law and sovereignty. As an upper division writing course, students will write a research paper and present an oral defense at the end of the quarter. Readings by Burke, de Maistre, Hamann, Herder, Jefferson, Kant, Madison, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Wollstonecraft.
Days: T TH  09:30-10:50 AM

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Days: Mo We  10:00-10:50 AM

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Days: Tu Th  12:30-01:50 PM

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Days: Mo We  12:00-12:50 PM

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